National Daughters Day

 **this one is harsh but I stand by it. Make sure you are mentally prepared.**

You aren’t posting in recognition of me on this day. My heart is aching a little because I see so many Facebook posts of people celebrating their daughters and I wonder why you don’t celebrate me. I often look at L and wonder how I could ever give up on her. I have only known her 4 years, and each year I grow more connected to her and less able to comprehend how you could abandon me like you did at such a fragile time. I have boiled it down to either 1, you don’t experience maternal love the way I do, or 2, something (someONE) is holding you back.  

Here are some words I wish I was hearing from you today.

“To my daughter,

What a strong, kind woman you have become. You were determined and fierce as a little kid, and those traits blossomed into traits of a woman who marched to the beat of her own drum. I am so proud of you for teaching your own daughter to be strong and kind and fierce as you are. You have had to be so brave the past few years, and I commend you for confronting so much adversity completely on your own. Your life burned down and you rebuilt it into something even better, brick by brick.

I know you will do well and continue to thrive. You have a way of gritting down and doing hard things that you know are good for you, trusting that it will pay off. And it does. Always. 

You worry if people like you, if you’re good enough, if your kids will be okay or if they’ll turn out to hate you and need years of counseling, but I can already see that it’s going to be perfect. Everything will turn out just fine, and I have faith in you to learn what you need to from the things that don’t go as expected. People like you a lot more than you know, you have no idea. 

I love you, I’m proud of you. You’ll always be my daughter.”

I have had to do your job and tell myself those things while you aren’t here to do it yourself. And it makes me sorry for you more than it makes me sorry for myself. I look forward so much to the day L finds herself. Even if that isn’t what I wish she would be, or what I expected, or even if it’s totally opposite of anything I like. There’s a Russian proverb that says something to the effect of “true love is loving someone the way God intended them to be”. I can’t wait to see and experience what God intends her to be. I feel so lucky to be a part of her journey. 

And I feel sorry for you that you can’t experience the full magnitude of what God has created me to be right now. I feel sorry for you that you missed the whole point of parenting, the whole reward for all your hard work. We just crossed in to the part where I actually have nothing to gain from you and everything to give you - the roles are reversed. 

What a great loss to give up on a once in a life time view over a short rocky patch in the hike. 

My condolences to you, this daughters day. May God have mercy on you when you begin to comprehend all that you have lost and missed.